False Identity
by Abigail Skywalker
Summary: I have just had an incredibly crazy idea. What if Tashigi got brutally wounded and stranded at sea and is rescued by the Strawhats, but no one knows who she is but Zoro. Hummmmm. How can I play this out? This is an AU story Just in case you couldn't figure it out.
1. A New Name

**Hello everyone! I have just had an incredibly crazy and strange idea. What if Tashigi gets brutally wounded and stranded at sea and is rescued by the Strawhats, but no one recognizes her but Zoro. Hummmm. How can I play this out? **

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**False Identity**: Chapter 1. A New Name

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Today was boring.

Today the air was stifling.

Today it was foggy.

Today was a terrible day to be the strawhats' lookout, but Zoro didn't mind doing it and because when the rest of the strawhats wanted to have fun he would often be nominated as look-out because they insisted that he had nothing better to do. And he agreed with their logic, by normal standards he didn't have anything better to do, and he preferred being left up in the crows nest in peace and quiet to do his routine exorcises than being coxed into playing a dumb game his Captain might come up with on the spur of the moment.

Even though he told himself he liked this peace and quiet there was something that continued to gnaw away at the back of his mind, a fear that started to come more and more reguarly, and it was even now plaguing his dreams.

It was always about the combination of his past and future mixed. He would start having a dream about the dojo that he used to go to, it would show his progress and briefly his training, it would show his friends and collegues growing up and how he could beat them all. All but one.

Kuina was in his dreams too. However, she never died like she did in real life. She continued to grow stronger and stronger. She would continue to except his challenges and beat him.

Zoro found he really enjoyed these dreams they gave Kuina a chance to live again, even if it was only in his memory, but then they would change. He would get older. She would get older. He would be complemented and she would get scorned. He hated how her father would always introduce him first as his prized pupil, and he started to understand the pain Kuina had to be feeling for being so obviously overlooked. He wanted to her to know he understood her pain and would stand by her side if she asked him too. He wanted her to share in his successes and failings. He wanted her to smile and scowl at him. He wanted her laugh and mock the world with him. He wanted her. Yes, He wanted her. When Zoro's dream mind had started to understand this, it would instantly shift from a scene of them sparing together behind the dojo to them holding each other closely and kissing intimately.

Zoro would awaken from those dreams feeling stiff, hot, and broken. He didn't know why he was having these dreams, but they most certainly weren't doing him any good. But there was a small part of him that enjoyed it. He liked to imagine what Kuina might have been like if she had grown older. He liked to think that she might have wanted him in that way, or at least thought he turned out attractive. And so he dreamed. Sometimes it was a daydream and sometimes it was an actual dream, but they would change dramatically and then change again for better or for worse.

And the most recent one had started well, but then turned out terrible. He had gotten married earlier in life to Kuina, and had not become the world's strongest swordsman like he had wanted to do as a child. He had instead become content with his wife and she had been happy. They had run their own dojo together and had become good teachers. But then the dream had taken a turn for the worse. He'd be held down by strong, silhouetted strangers that seemed to want something, and she had been beaten in front of him. They told her to tell them what they wanted to know and she would refuse time and time again. They hit her so many times that her skin would split and her own blood would be running down her face and body making her unrecognisable. And then they disappeared. He got up and ran to her side, but found that he was too late, and she was dead. A feeling of desperate despair came over Zoro, and he cried out in his anguish. Then he had woken up sweating and on the verge of crying.

"I must get stronger." He said to himself as he lifted up the weights above his head. He couldn't allow these dreams to get to him any longer. He must overcome his fears, and in this case his only regret.

_It wasn't my fault._ He would catch himself thinking, but a part of him always pointed the finger, always condemned, and always thought it was. If he had never made her that promise then she might have never been hurt with Wado Ichimonji.

He had made himself a promise that he would complete his goal because he had promised her. He didn't, no he couldn't allow her death be in vain. He wanted to be able to look into her eyes from heaven or hell or even at all and say, "I did it."

His heart wanted to say. _I did it for you._

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_I don't want to think about this anymore._

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Today was boring.

Today the air was stifling.

Today it was foggy.

Today was a terrible day to be the strawhats' lookout, but Zoro didn't mind doing it and because when the rest of the strawhats wanted to have fun he would often be nominated as look-out because they insisted that he had nothing better to do. And he agreed with their logic, by normal standards he didn't have anything better to do, and he preferred being left up in the crows nest in peace and quiet to do his routine exercises than being coxed into playing a dumb game his Captain might come up with on the spur of the moment.

Zoro yawned, and continued to go through the rest of his exercises on autopilot as he surveyed the nothingness before him.

It wasn't surprising that one could not see anything with all the fog and cloud on the sea, but Zoro wasn't just anyone, and from time to time he would create a whirlwind from his blades that would temporarily break apart the cloudy blanket. On one such occasion an object caught his eye.

"Oi! Everyone wreckage on the left!" He got ready to jump to the deck below.

"Hey Zoro! I told you when you want to direct someone on a ship you say Starboard or Port to show which side of the boat you are indicating." Nami told him off, while coming out of what was supposed to be the Captain's quarters, but being Nami, she had miraculously obtained it for her own personal use.

"I don't care, Oi Luffy..." Before he could add anything else he had been cast out to sea by the bouncy Captain who just so happened to hit Zoro as he jumped down from the Crows-nest.

_Damn Luffy. _Were Zoro's thoughts as he landed in the middle of the wreckage.

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After looking around the dump they soon discovered the wreckage was basically driftwood and discarded rubbish.

But it wasn't long before Zoro made an unusual discovery. He had noticed a few boats floating off in different directions and instead of just ignoring them like the others did, he went to investigate. He caught a hold of a lot of them, but the majority where empty or broken and barely floating. One had been completely covered by a torn sail that had probably been torn off a ship. As he came closer to the ship he could see the sail had been stained in blood that hadn't been washed away in the previous storm, which probably meant it was fresh.

He pulled up the bloody sail curiously to look inside and his heart thudded against his chest at his horror. In the battered boat lay Kuina. Or else she looked exactly the way Kuina had in his dream. A Battered a broken young lady with black hair and torn clothes. He gripped the side of the boat there transfixed for a few moments until he shook himself too and reminded himself that Kuina had died a long time ago.

_But there is that Marine girl that looks like her. No way. It can't be her._

He lifted himself up over the side and climbed in glancing around the boat looking for the Marine Girl's sword, Shigure, and any sign of her signature glasses, but there was no sign of them. He dipped his hand into the salty waves and lifted up water to her face to wash away the dry blood from her cold and dirty face. She might have a lot of cuts and bruises, but he was sure it was her. He placed two fingers on the side of her neck and felt for the pulse that would indicate whether she was alive or dead. A wave of relief flooded through him when he felt a tiny pulse, and he yelled out to the others immediately.

"Oi! We have a survivor here!"

He through what remained of the sail away and used the available driftwood around him to paddle himself back to the Thousand Sunny. He tried to prevent her head from moving to much as he knew it might hurt her back if she had a spinal ingury of any kind. Even if she was the Marine Girl she would certainly die if she didn't receive help.

With the swaying of the boat from the rising and falling of the waves it was a feet that he was able to get her back without letting her slip even once.

"Oi! Chopper! Are you here?" Zoro called out into the whiteness. But received no answer from the doctor.

"Hey, Zoro!" Franky called overboard. "Did you get lost alre..." He cut off when he saw the torn up person with Zoro. "Who's that!"

"It doesn't matter. Now, Open up a dock so I can come in."

Once Franky had tied the battered boat down he bolted upstairs and Zoro could hear him using some sort of megaphone that made his voice louder calling all Strawhats back to base.

Zoro bent down over the woman's sprawled body and picked her up as gently as he could, and carried her across the ship into the doctor's quarters.

The others that had been too far away from him to hear his call at first all gathered around to see what he had found as soon as they arrived.

"It's a young woman!" Brook said, pointing out the obvious.

Usopp pushed through the crowd, "Let me see! Oh, she's in bad shape." Usopp added with felt sympathy.

"She must have been caught in last night's storm." Nami explained. "Poor thing."

"Stand back everyone! Give her some room. I need to see if she is still okay." Chopper finally made it into the middle of the circle. And everyone backed off and gave the doctor some space. Chopper gave her a check over, frowned and shook his head. "I will do what I can for her, but she is in very bad shape and it is highly possible she won't last the night."

The relief at finding her suddenly turned hollow, and Zoro found fear gripping him again.

_It wasn't the same girl, so it shouldn't matter so much right? but she was... no … she wasn't. That didn't make sense._

"Swordsman, you look pale." Robin said into the silence. And everyone gave him their utmost attention.

"It's nothing." No one looked like they believed him.

_Was it okay to tell them? Would they mind or in their stupidity just not care. Why not? He knew a lot about their hidden pasts right? But they can never see that side of him again. No, Never._

"Well, I can't quite tell for sure yet, but she looks like an old friend of mine." he allowed his eyes to narrow, and his forehead to furrow into frown lines.

"Really?" Luffy came up behind him sounding serious for once. "Where did you meet her?"

"We used to train together, and fight each other at her father's dojo, but she disappeared a long while back and I never saw her again." Zoro's hand strayed to Wado Ichimonji to make sure it was in place, he never wanted this blade to hurt her again. The Marine girl had always been so adamant about wanting to have it, but Wado Ichimonji was the blade that ended Kuina's life and held him to his, but he would never let her take it for her sake as well as for his. He didn't believe in a anything supernatural, but there was always a part of him that contradicted himself. It allowed him to hope for the impossible and dream for the incredible.

_She really didn't look that much like the Marine Girl right now, she looked more like..._

"Kuina?" he reached out and held her cold hand in his. "Kuina? Can you hear me? It's me, Zoro."

_What if this was just another dream? He could pretend she was his friend right?_

Her hand was so tiny and cold he found himself beginning to gently rub her hands with his own. "Kuina." He asked again.

_Why am I doing this to myself? It would be better and easier to just leave, and pretend that she means nothing to me at all. Chopper, Franky, and Luffy have the biggest bleeding hearts around. I should just leave her to them. Kuina's dead, even if Tashigi does wake up, she will still hate me. I need to go._

"So...ro..." a cracked sound came up from the cut lips and her eyelids split open for a fraction of a second, and then closed.

_No, no. This is …._

Zoro stood up almost immediately, not looking anyone in the eye, and walked out of the medical room. She might not be Kuina, but she looked like her, and he had just called her by Kuina's name. He just couldn't bare to see her in that much pain.

_It wasn't like I would be that much help in the recovery process after all. I should just leave her alone. She has nothing to do with me. Nothing to do with me. _

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_**A very miserable chapter one. But it will get better I promise. Please leave a review. :D**_


	2. Awakening

**I do think Zoro was a little OFC in the previous Chapter, but I also thought at the time that it worked and that it might have just meant to happen that way. You never know.**

**By the way I don't own One Piece. Because if I did why would I be uploading onto a Fanfiction website?**

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**False Identity**: Chapter 2: Awakening

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Her head was spinning with drowsiness and pain. She tried to move, but was to stiff. She felt cold, but her chest felt like it was burning. So, she just lay there for a little while trying to focus on the ceiling, but that to was swaying back and forth in her vision. _Why did she feel so sore? What was this? Had she fallen out of that tree again._

She could remember that her mother had always told her not to climb it, but she never listened. The view from the highest branches was the best. Her mother would come out of the house in a panicked voice and would say... _… What did she used to say?_ … Her head throbbed again, and her ears started aching beyond reason. _What is happening?_

Tashigi pulled herself up slowly, and tried to hold back the panic that had begun to rise. She surveyed her surroundings. _I don't recognize anything. Where am I? _

_Okay, okay,_ she breathed. _back up a bit. What do I do ? … _The Worry increased. She slowly pulled her hands in front of her. She had been bandaged up pretty well, but her pain was still very raw.

_Who am I?_ The worry she had felt early was well deserved. She didn't know herself. She didn't know who she was! She felt tears streaming down her face before she could stop them. _What had happened to me?_

_Where am I?_ Well, she could feel a gentle tipping from side to side, so she was either riding a large animal or she was on a boat.

She turned suddenly surprised as she heard a creek of the floor boards outside the door, and then almost jumped out of her bandages as it then bashed back against the wall. A tanned young lad came through and walked straight up to her, his solemn face gained a cheery smile when he saw her.

"Hi there, Zoro's friend!"

Who's Zoro?

"Are you feeling any better yet?" he said smiling.

"I..." she tried to swallow, talking was hard.

"Do you want something to drink?" he asked.

She nodded. and he ran back to the door and yelled out of it. "HEY EVERYONE ZORO'S FRIEND IS AWAKE! AND SANJI, GET SOME WATER!"

"I told you she's not my friend she looks like my friend." A voice yelled back from somewhere.

He turned back towards her. "Hey, is your name Kuina?" wait a minute, does that mean these people didn't even know who she was, but were the ones who bandaged her up, just because she looked like a man's friend. She didn't even know who she was, but if she said that she might not be given any more help.

"Yes, I am, but a lot of my memory is broken."

"Huh? Your memory can't be broken?" he looked puzzled and stepped back to the door then yelled again. "SHE SAYS SHE IS KUINA! ZORO! COME AND SAY HI!" he stepped back into the room again and approached her bed. "You want some meat! That will make you feel better!"

Through the door fell three figures all at once. She couldn't quite tell who or what they were because everything was a bit blurry. _Was it supposed to be blurry?_

She saw someone with copper coloured hair come closer to her. The closer she got the more defind it became. So she was short-sighted... "Don't mind him." the girl said, in a blaze of colour she saw her hit the smiling boy over the hit and kick him into the far wall. "He is just the idiot Captain."

"I'm so glad you're alright!" someone was crying by her side, she looked down at a furry creature that was patting her arm.

"It's a good job Zoro found you when he did or you would have been a goner." a person with what she could tell had a really long nose was talking.

"Mademoiselle!" Next came in a man dressed head to toe in black. Was this the one who had saved her? "Here is your water. I was praying for your recovery. And now the heavens have blessed us with your return." I could feel my headache getting worse.

I took the water from him and drank down what I could. My thought felt dry and course like sand paper.

"Where … am … I?" I managed to get out.

"You are on the Thousand Sunny, and we are the Strawhat Pirates!" The boy with the grin came back into view.

"Who...?"

"I'm Monkey D. Luffy! And I'm going to be the king of the Pirates!"

"Not so loud, Baka. SHE'S SICK!" the guy in the black suit tried to kick him away. "Didn't you learn anything from the time when Nami was sick. BE Quiet."

The girl with the ginger hair leaned over me and put her hand on my head. She had nice, kind eyes despite having kicked her captain so madly. She turned back to the rest of them.

"Hey guys, she needs more rest. You should leave now." the rest of them left in a miserable state, as she and the tiny furry creature talked to me. I heard that the girl's name was Nami, and the tiny thing was Chopper, but I was too tired to remember to stay awake. And soon enough I was asleep. My name is Kuina for now. I have to learn who this Kuina person was and temporary become her, so this pirate crew doesn't abandon me at sea. And then I need to find out who I am.

Who am I?

Who am I?

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**Well, that was slightly nicer wasn't it. Not as sad as the other chapter. What do you think? Give me a review. :D**


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